Shumlin: Disastrous federal cuts might be real

Sequester 'would be a disaster for Vermont and the rest of the country,' governor says

Feb. 22, 2013

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, accompanied by other members of the Democratic Governors Associations, speaks outside the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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Free Press Staff Writer

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin took to a national stage Friday, holding a one-on-one interview at a Politico event in Washington, then meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss possible impending federal spending cuts.

Obama was not feeling good about the possibilities that the Republican-controlled House would avoid massive March 1 federal budget cuts, Shumlin said.

“It looks like it might really happen a week from Monday,” he said after he and other Democratic governors met with the president. “It would be a disaster for Vermont and the rest of the country.”

Shumlin said the cuts would hurt the entire economy over the long-term. More immediately, they would mean furloughs for those in Vermont whose jobs are paid for with federal money, among other impacts. Shumlin said there is no way to plan for that.

“If they push the button, we don’t have the money in the bank to make up for that,” Shumlin said. “We just have to hope.”

Shumlin, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, was scheduled to debate Republican Governors Association Chairman Bobby Jindal on Friday, but Jindal apparently had not agreed to the event, according to Politico, which played host as part of its third annual State Solutions Conference.

So it was all Shumlin for just short of an hour. He was asked numerous times in numerous ways if he wants to run for president. He never said yes, and he never said no.

What he did say instead was:

• “I’m not one of those governors who suffers from the disease that they have to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to have a fulfilling life.”

• The best part of going to Washington is going home.

• “I really want to be governor of Vermont.”

Shumlin also claimed to have invented civil unions and said his sister must have had “an extra drink” when she reported that he dreamed of becoming president when he was a kid.

He didn’t quite “invent” civil unions, though as Senate president pro tempore in 2000 he was a key leader in the passage of the precursor to same-sex marriage and was a key force behind the 2009 passage of same-sex marriage. The term “civil unions” already was in use when the bill reached the Senate from the House, where it originated, that year.

Shumlin said afterward he was joking when he used the word “invent,” a play on the oft-used phrase that Al Gore invented the Internet.

Highlights from the interview on other issues:

• Shumlin stuck to the notion that Vermont needs no new gun laws, but the governor backed national restrictions on the size of gun magazines and requiring background checks for all gun sales. He was hesitant about banning assault weapons, saying, “It depends on how city boys define an assault weapon.”

• Shumlin was highly critical of what he called “the tea-party Congress,” accusing it of “holding American prosperity hostage.” He said, “The one thing that stands in our way of prosperity, of job creation, right now, is this Congress, which refuses to work with the president.”

• Asked how he would fund a single-payer health-care system, Shumlin didn’t go into specifics but said instead, “We’re paying for it right now.”